Donating Leftover Fashion Samples to Charity

Amanda Munz started the Fashion Foundation, which sells excess samples from fashion labels.Credit
an Rong Xu for The New York Times

Amanda Munz

Age 27

Hometown Lindenhurst, N.Y.

Now Lives Still in Lindenhurst, in the same four-bedroom home that she shares with her parents. “That’s start-up-charity life for you,” Ms. Munz said.

Claim to Fame Ms. Munz is the founder of the Fashion Foundation, a nonprofit that solicits excess samples from fashion houses and designers, sells them online and at a store in Farmingdale, N.Y., and uses the proceeds to buy school supplies for underprivileged students in the New York City area. “This is my baby,” she said. “I really think this can be the go-to nonprofit for the fashion industry.”

Big Break In 2015, after interning at Swimwear Anywhere, where she saw lots of unused samples thrown away, she formed the Fashion Foundation in a spare room in her parents’ house. It was slow going until she met the designer Rebecca Minkoff at a SoHo fund-raiser for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in 2016. A week later, Ms. Minkoff donated 20 boxes of unsold merchandise. “Rebecca physically pushed me out of my home office,” she said. “Saying her name gives me so much credibility.” Since then, donations have also come from Calvin Klein, Vera De Nero and Aimee Lynn Apparel.

Latest Project For New York Fashion Week, her foundation teamed with Nolcha, which mounts runway shows for emerging designers, and Mac Duggal, a label known for its prom dresses, to auction off tickets to their runway shows. More than $2,000 has been raised so far.

Next Thing In January, the foundation opened a pop-up showroom at 124 West 24th Street in Chelsea. The 154-square-foot space was donated by Shaurja Ray, a friend who develops Salons by JC, a company that rents small spaces to independent beauty professionals. Ms. Munz hopes to have a permanent showroom in Manhattan one day. “Free rent in New York City does not happen,” she said.

1 Broke Girl “I came out of college making no money,” said Ms. Munz, who attended the Fashion Institute of Technology. “All of my friends in the fashion industry came out of college working for big companies and making a ton of money. But a lot of them are miserable. Whereas I wake up every day loving what I do.”

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